


A Not-So-Old-Fashioned Courtship

by AndallitsGlory



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Brainwashing, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemy Lovers, M/M, Past Torture, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Psychological Trauma, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-08-12
Packaged: 2018-04-09 21:48:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4365374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndallitsGlory/pseuds/AndallitsGlory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Steve continues to learn how to adapt in the modern world, Bucky struggles with S.H.I.E.L.D's attempts to help him recover from HYDRA's programming. Neither of them particularly trust S.H.I.E.L.D at this point and ultimately they both decide that Bucky shouldn't stay there anymore. But some HYDRA programming remains strong in Bucky's mind and the Winter Soldier isn't pleased that he still hasn't completed his last given mission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 21st Century Courtship

**Author's Note:**

> I initially began writing this a week ago with the thought that it worked as a post-Winter Soldier fanfic. It's intended to be 3 chapters.
> 
> Winter Soldier has been since its release my favorite Marvel movie, but only a few weeks ago did I become absolutely addicted to Steve/Bucky fanfiction. This story is my way of giving back to the fandom. I hope you enjoy!

Bucky would have loved 21st century women.

Back in the 1940s, Bucky had loved all women. Maybe it was from having a sister that taught him how to treat the ladies or from him coming from a mama that raised him right, but women loved Bucky too. They flocked to him like birds to seed even before the war; then during, were more than happy to show him a certain brand of patriotism.

Now, Steve noted as Agent 72 swiped open the keypad to Bucky’s S.H.I.E.L.D. apartment, they feared him. Agent 72, her kinky hair in long, tight braids, had too much training and professionalism to show it, but from the way her mouth thinned, Steve could tell she didn’t like being in this part of the building. He couldn’t blame her; while Bucky hadn’t gone after anyone in the last three months, his doctors still categorized him as “volatile, prone to fits of rage and anxiety attacks.” He went through what they called “dissociative fugues” at night, a term Steve still didn’t understand, but which they explained worked kind of like a severe case of sleepwalking. 

He had inkling that that explanation didn’t put it in precise terms because they didn’t expect him to understand. He looked it up on the internet just to be sure and figured them correct. 

Despite this, the specialists tentatively agreed amongst themselves that cooping Bucky up inside likely didn’t do the man any mental good. Recently, they passed a suggestion onto Fury that a few times a week Bucky should get some fresh air. As long as someone supervised, of course.

And who was more able, and willing, to supervise than Steve? 

“Bucky?” he called out, entering the sliding door. “How you doing today?”

Bucky lingered by his usual place at the windowsill, gazing down at bustling Manhattan. He was under surveillance 24/7, which was what probably gave his doctors the idea that they should let him go beyond the window. As the Winter Soldier, he had roamed around New York, but only at HYDRA’s command. He hadn’t really lived in the city since before he joined the army.

New York, of course, had changed quite a bit. Was still changing, at a terrifying speed. Steve looked out the window of his own Brooklyn apartment every day, and could swear things that didn't exist the day before spontaneously rooted themselves onto his block. The dirt rolled back a little further, the broken down buildings rose again in better shape than ever, new residents pushed out the old. Catching up on 70 years of lost history between his getting frozen in ice and his thawing out proved a difficult enough task; the transformation of his neighborhood disconcerted him even more.

Bucky had his flesh hand pressed up against the glass. Steve supposed that he gleaned from the amount of people he saw below that, “It’s lunch hour.”

“Yeah, I had to come in a little earlier today.”

“They don’t like me out when it’s busy,” Bucky said in the dry tone that had become his normal speaking voice. It didn’t quite reach the depths it had when he worked as the Winter Soldier as he sounded now much more disinterested than dead. On the other hand, it didn’t inspire Steve to have confidence in therapy’s benefits. While he knew from Sam that doctors now widely considered therapy vital for most soldiers’ reintegration into society, the S.H.I.E.L.D doctors didn’t have Sam’s reassuring manners or kind quality. They seemed more interested in efficiency than anything else.

“Then we can wait for a little while then before we go.” All of Bucky’s furniture was screwed into the ground so Steve sat cross-legged on the linoleum floor in front of the windowsill. “Do you remember the Whitney Studio? It’s a museum now, filled with all 20th century and contemporary art. I thought that—“

“I want to go to the park.” 

Steve’s shoulders dropped a fraction. They had gone only to Central Park for the last month. Bucky had never had any particular affinity for it before and Steve suspected that the reason his friend liked it now laid in its traffic. As long as the weather remained survivable, someone hung out there and Bucky liked to trail strangers even if he never touched them. When Steve mentioned this to Bucky’s primary specialist, Dr. Bennet, the man suggested it an an earnest effort to redirect his programming to a harmless outlet. But Steve had seen a shift in Bennet’s jaw that implied he himself didn’t feel reassured.

His silence must have alerted Bucky to his uncertainty because the other man inclined his head toward him. Eye contact hardly came nowadays, but when it did, Steve always felt—what was it?—lighter. Bucky didn’t track Steve; he always seemed a little baffled by him like he still couldn’t believe that someone could bear to talk to him outside of having him fulfill their violent gratifications. 

The metal hand ghosted over Steve’s wrist, slipping away before Steve could grab and keep it there. But he understood the signal well enough.

“Whatever you want, pal.”

***

Bucky must have planned to say something to him all week.

They had laid out a blanket on the grass, within view of the Bethesda Fountain. A couple of feet away from them, a football sailed through the wind in between hooting and hollering college kids. One, dressed in camouflage pants and a military jacket, slammed to the ground to keep a hold on the ball. Meanwhile, pair of young brothers screamed as they darted after their Jack Russell Terrier, who skidded and swerved across the red and white bricks. The dog, his tongue flopping in glee, passed a woman in red shoes who sat on the lip of the fountain. Her head craned forward as she read a paperback and Steve kept catching glimpses of her dark, curly hair whenever he lifted his head.

Steve had not brought his own book, so he bird-watched for the first hour of their visit, using an app on his smartphone as his guide. His ideal vision of these trips included him re-bonding with Bucky —however, Bucky responded even less than he usually did during their trips. Instead, he hunted and Steve didn’t want to know which of their neighbors he had chosen as his current target.

Then Bucky spoke without Steve’s prompting.

He said, “They’re not going to let me go, are they?”

It had rained the night before, bringing the spring climate to something tolerable if not chilly enough that Bucky’s black sweatshirt fit in among those of nearby New Yorkers’. He hunched over, keeping both his metal and flesh hands hidden in the kangaroo pockets. Steve didn’t like not trusting his friend—he was sure that Bucky didn’t know how he looked despite the tension that lined his shoulders—but while he sat a fair distance away, his brain planned precautions in case that metal arm decided to commit a murder.

“What do you mean, Buck?”

“Even if I ever get to go outside again without you or stop having nightmares, they’ll just figure out a way to use me,” Bucky said in his dry voice. “They’ll either have me join your avenging team or something closer to what HYDRA did.”

Steve’s heart dropped and he reached over to touch Bucky’s shoulder. The hard sewn muscle stiffened momentarily under his palm, but otherwise Bucky acted like he didn’t notice. “Hey, nobody’s going to make you do anything you don’t want to do again.”

“Has anyone told Tony Stark this?” Bucky asked. He had met Tony, Steve knew, a few times now because the obnoxious expert in all things tech had insisted on taking a full look at Bucky’s arm. “I already told him that if I have to listen to him talk anymore, I’m yanking out my own eardrums, but he doesn’t seem to care.”

It took Steve a second to realize that Bucky was joking and then it took him by such surprise that he almost forgot to laugh. Of course Bucky would take an immediate irritation toward Stark and butt heads with him like Steve had. Of course Stark’s pomposity would drive him up a wall. He and Steve were still, in many ways, the same.

“What did Tony say to that?”

“Doesn’t matter. It's not the point,” Bucky said and Steve choked down the rest of his laughter. “S.H.I.E.L.D. says that therapy’s giving me my agency back, but they’re not fooling me.”

“Not to give you any ideas, but Sam and I spent over a year looking for you after HYDRA fell. What makes you think you’re so helpless?” 

An athletic-bodied woman walked over to the curly-haired woman by the fountain and leaned down over her book. The two gave each other a short kiss in greeting and then snuggled beside each other, content. 

Steve’s hand flitted over Bucky’s knee. Strands of too-long hair grazed Bucky’s shoulders as he looked down before softly pushing it away. Steve straightened up, embarrassed.

“A lot of things.” A long pause. Then, “You.”

Steve ran his hand through his hair, grateful for the distraction when one of the kids tripped on the bricks and colliding onto them, jaw-first. He rose to help, knowing that he should ask what Bucky meant by that. Convincing himself to not.

***

During the Great Depression, everyone had so little money that women knew that men meant to impress them if they took them out for the movies or ice cream. People nowadays, when Steve talked about his life, had the exasperating tendency to find such details charming. Steve knew from Bucky’s exploits how not-charming it could be if a man didn’t take into proper account how much money he would have left over for food and rent the next day. 

Even with the scarcity of men during the War, women still hadn’t gone out with Steve. Maybe it was disguised good fortune; unlike Bucky, he had never had to go through those particular budgeting risks. It kind of amazed him now, while having sushi for dinner with Sharon somewhere in Chelsea, that even with how overpriced these little pieces of fish were, he didn’t have to worry.

But if Sharon thought of sushi as a normal date, what was her equivalent to the Depression’s movie and ice cream? 

“Steve.”

“I’m sorry, what was that?” He looked up from his plate of freshwater eel. He hadn’t found the opportunity to ask yet, but had had it in the back of his mind for awhile to find out how long after WWII it took for Americans to incorporate Japanese food so enthusiastically into their diet. After a few years out of ice and hundreds of similar inquiries, he had the sneaking suspicion that the people he knew would only shrug their shoulders and he would have to return to the mighty Internet again to discover the answer. 

“I said that if you wanted ice cream after, we could go to Big Gay Ice Cream,” she said. Tony had called Chelsea “the gayborhood” at some point, and Steve had believed it one of his stupid jokes until earlier that night when he passed by the gay biker bar that served food in dog bowls. 

He fumbled with how to answer her suggestion without sounding like a startled grandfather. “Oh, uh. That sounds…”

Sharon brought the ends of the chopsticks to her lips, grinning. “Tasty?”

He decided to let them leave it at that. 

Steve would have said they were dating, but according to her his terminology was outdated enough that even that wasn’t accurate. It was more like they saw each other on occasion, even slept together a few times, but didn’t want to barrel toward going steady, or, in her terms, “become exclusive.” American women now valued their careers just as much as 1940s women had their (it turned out, temporary) jobs. S.H.I.E.L.D demanded an exhausting amount from all its employees and Sharon had no interest in adding to life’s demands by settling down and popping out a few kids.

As long as they didn't call it “hooking up,” Steve was actually okay with it. He had used to think that marriage and a family was exactly what he had wanted. Ever since Bucky’s return, however, he found himself growing more distracted from that goal and putting more into his independence.

A man accompanied by two women sat down at the table next to them. He had a familiar shape to his jaw and giggles burst from the women like spray. Steve hadn’t heard what the man said, but the way one of the girls tossed her hair reminded him distinctly of one of Bucky’s longer-termed beaus back during the Depression. What had been her name? Mary? Margaret? Bucky used to memorize the names of his dates better than he ever showed that he could for subject tests in school, but nowadays if Steve asked, he would get in answer an expression that almost insinuated that Bucky thought he was crazy.

“Spending a lot of time with Bucky still?”

Steve sighed and pulled his eyes away from their neighbors. “Not as much as I would like.”

Sharon pursed her lips. “You still have the option of moving into the Tower. It’s not just closer to headquarters, you know, there’s also a lot of good food around there.”

“I need to keep some division between my work and private life. I heard that’s a thing people are into now.”

She laughed and lifted her wineglass for more of an inhale than a sip. “Nobody at S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Besides,” he said, “they can’t keep Bucky there forever and I would like to have a separate, more homey place he can come to when that happens.”

Sharon’s face dropped, but she didn't vocalize a reply. They finished their food and the women next to them had drank through two Blue Moons each, the man at this point obviously paying their tab—Steve guessed chivalry wasn’t dead for everyone, although he and Sharon had a reluctant from his end you-pay-this-time-I-pay-next-time agreement—before Sharon spoke up again.

“Steve, what makes you think that Fury is ever going to let Bucky leave?”

Steve took a big gulp of water and forced a smile. “Well, if he doesn’t he’ll have to go through me, won’t he?”

She stared at him. After their server came by to collect their plates, she forced her voice a few octaves lower than her normal range. “You’re not considering taking Bucky out on your own, are you? 

“No, I—“

“Because you know that will get you killed.”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. She took him too seriously sometimes; another reason why they could never move onto a more permanent relationship. He couldn’t jive with her the way he used to jive with Peggy. The time period difference somehow isolated him from other people in subtle ways he could never get around.

He let her have the last word on this, too. But they didn’t get ice cream that night.

***

The crowds and their ocean-like flow at the S.H.I.E.L.D lobby had lessened a great deal, leaving an eerie, unfamiliar quiet throughout the building. If the building had housed normal New Yorkers, it would have gone on lockdown. However, the trained agents must have assumed that they could take another of Bucky’s meltdowns after they had survived last round.

This time, the agency granted Steve Agent 72 and two other agents he hadn’t met before to guide him to Bucky’s quarters. Last time, they had had that exact amount of people blocking his way as they attempted to subdue Bucky themselves. It hadn’t worked. To comfort them more than himself, he brought his shield with him this time. 

He waited until the group of them reached the brand new elevator, which brought them up 9 floors before he demanded to know, “What happened?”

Three different voices debriefed him at once.

“—almost killed Dr. Bennet, sir—“

“—normal up to 10 AM session—“

“—yelling in Russian—“

“—stabbed right through the femoral artery with his pen—“

“—took out 7 guards and ran straight back to his quarters—“

“—said he’ll wait for you, Captain.”

“Alright, enough,” Steve said, irritable and wondering if this was the kind of chaos Fury had to sort through every day. Such organizational skills were beyond him. Agent 72 walked by his side, her braids now tied back into a very large bun and when they reached Bucky’s door, he said to her, “Please open the door, agent.”

“We haven’t given him any tranquilizers, Captain,” she said, never taking her dark eyes from his face. If she had more trepidation now than on a normal day, she had an impressive way of not revealing it. “And we’ve heard a lot of crashing about—he could still be running rogue, but a signal in his arm keeps intermittently sabotaging the surveillance devices. We’re only getting a picture of what he’s doing in there every 12 minutes or so.”

Steve reached back and pulled his shield out from its straps. He didn’t often carry it with him outside of combat situations and hoped that this would not turn into yet another one. Last time, after he had had a few small projectiles aimed at his head, he managed to talk Bucky down from his explosive state.

“Move aside,” he said.

“Weapons raised, men,” she said to the other two agents with them. They raised their handguns before Agent 72 swiped her key against the lock and shifted into position behind Steve with her own gun pointed. They probably knew how unlikely it was that a near weaponless Bucky would attack them while they had Steve’s protection, but he guessed that Fury had a policy in place.

The door slid open.

Agent 72 was right about the “crashing about.” Bucky’s mattress laid in tatters in the middle of the room, feathers from the pillows lifting and skidding across the linoleum as air came in from the open door. He had managed to wrench out the bed frame from its screws and twist it into a near unrecognizable shape. Bits of glass scattered around, source unclear, and Steve counted at least half a dozen dents in the steel walls. Bucky, in the middle of trying to make his next dent into the ungiving window glass, jumped from his position and charged toward them.

Steve’s veins went cold. He had seen that cyborg approach before, when HYDRA had had control of his friend. He had seen Bucky pick off innocents around him in his quest to complete his given mission in killing Steve. Steve didn’t need to glance behind him to know that the agents had tightened their grips on their guns.He could smell their perspiration and hear the hitches in their breathing. Bucky almost certainly could too.

Bucky stopped right up against the shield, nose-to-nose with Steve. Long strands of hair fell into his eyes. Steve saw none of the warmth in the gray-blue that he had seen in the last few months. He held his breath, relying on his periphery vision to catch the first strike, wondering how many hits he could block before Bucky forced him to parlay back.

But then: “Make them leave.”

The words hadn’t come out dry, but in a snarl.

Steve lowered the shield, his fingertips prickling as his heartbeat returned to normal. Thank God. “You heard him, agents.”

“But, Captain Ro—“

“I won’t ask again. Go. Now.”

He didn’t have to look to know that none of them dropped their guns as they backed away and that none of them dared to take their sights off Bucky as they did. On the other hand, Bucky never spared them any of his attention, not breaking his contact with Steve until the door closed audibly once again.

Well, then.

Steve splayed out his arms in front of him. “What happened here, Buck?”

Bucky stormed back to the windowsill. A ‘thunk’ reverberated back as Bucky laid his metal arm against the glass. Steve had never seen him press his nose up against the city the way he did now. “You need to get me out of here.”

Steve suppressed most of a sigh and approached his friend, still cautious. “Bucky, they told me you tried to kill your psychiatrist this morning. If that’s true, they’re not going to want you to leave.”

“He needed to be incapacitated,” Bucky said. “And they never are going to want me to leave.”

“What do you mean, he needed…? Bucky, please, you haven’t done something like this in months. I can’t ask Fury or anyone to let me take you until you tell me why this happened.”

Bucky’s metal fingers tapped an unconscious rhythm against the window. It took Steve a few moments to notice that he had started to do the same against his shield, which he then returned to his back. “You need to get me out of here,” Bucky repeated, confirming his intention to keep the conversation circular.

Steve wasn’t proud of the impatience that leaked out when he said, “Goddamnit, Bucky, why?”

He tried not to look surprised when Bucky turned his attention back to him. Now accepted that just because Bucky approached him that way didn’t mean he was on the attack. Didn’t pull back when the flesh hand cradled his jaw, when Bucky asked, “How’s this for why?” or even when stubble rubbed his chin raw as foreign lips closed over his.

He grabbed his friend by the shoulders, initially to push him away, but then held them there in confusion as the metal arm wrapped around his waist and locked him into the embrace. Kissing Bucky had an innate roughness to it, unlike kissing Sharon or any other girl. As Bucky’s tongue broke the barrier to his mouth, a surge of adrenaline crested in Steve, overtaking him much like how the instinct to survive, to win, overtook him in combat, and he grabbed the hair on the back of Bucky’s head to force him closer. The smell of the other man filled his nostrils and a warmth starting from his chest built outward, tingling his skin all over as if it had gone numb…

Bucky let him go and stepped away, waiting for an answer.

There was a crude phrase that had come into fashion sometime during Steve’s years entrapped in ice. Natasha used it often, particularly in the presence of Maria Hill or other women that were sure to snicker along with her. “That’s Tony for you, always thinking with his dick.” Or while chatting about a mission, “Yeah, Sam’s usually such a measured guy, but sometimes he does things and you know he’s only thinking with his dick.” Or “Don’t make fun of Thor for thinking with his dick, you guys, he doesn’t have much else to think with.”

Steve was pretty sure “thinking with his dick” right now. And that Natasha, once she heard of this, was never going to let it go.


	2. Freedom?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few wrenches are thrown into Steve's life after he brings Bucky back to his apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who gave me kudos, bookmarked, and commented last chapter! I've never received such a response to any fic I wrote before and it made me so happy to see that people liked my work.
> 
> Shout out to my friend, Mark, who told me where to go with this chapter when I was between a fork in the road.

“Oh my God,” Natasha said, sitting in one of the chairs in front of Fury’s desk. The footage that played on Fury’s tablet looped back to the beginning, where Agent 72 adjusted the camera before leaving the room with the other agents. Natasha watched Steve follow Bucky across the room again. “He damselled him.”

But that couldn’t be right. Putting seductive strategies into what amounted to a humanoid tank didn’t strike her as very HYDRA-like. That’s what the Russians had her and the other girls for—long cons and intel-gathering missions. HYDRA had meant the Winter Soldier for only top-secret, vital kills that had to happen in as little time as possible; not for sticking his tongue down opponents’ throats.

“It seems he did,” Fury said, lowering the tablet to the mahogany surface. “It also seems that Barnes was a little more desperate than I was told.”

“Desperate, sir? I thought that you said that this was the Winter Soldier completing his last given mission.” 

The director pulled open the top drawer of his desk and from it handed out to her two pieces of yellowed paper sealed in transparent plastic. She accepted and scanned them, gathering with some surprise that a Colonel Phillips had written them in 1943 to a Senator Brandt. The letters detailed a rescue of 150 American soldiers led by, of course, Captain Steven Grant Rogers. Phillips listed Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes among the liberated and cited him as Steve’s motivating factor for the unapproved mission.

One corner of Natasha’s mouth quirked upward, which she quickly hid from Fury. How Steve of him. How utterly, disgustingly, self-righteously Steve of him.

“The HYDRA programming that directed the Winter Soldier used to work on a clean slate,” Fury said. Natasha looked up at him to see his one eye gazing deep into her, his hands connecting into a tent shape. “They wiped his memory and put him into cryosleep after every mission. Now it has to work around whatever parts of Barnes Dr. Bennet and his team have unearthed in the past year. He held an assistant hostage in a S.H.I.E.L.D closet three months ago, if you remember.”

She nodded. She hadn’t quite known that much; only from Steve that Bucky had experienced a “setback.” Sam had condescended to her when she told him that Steve was downplaying; she couldn’t wait to throw this one back in his face.

“He didn’t hurt the assistant, merely held him in a closet and threatened anyone who tried to come near until Captain Rogers came to intervene. It’s assumed now that he was testing the facility and Rogers.”

“That’s a big leap,” she observed. “Holding someone hostage to savagely stabbing your therapist.”

Fury leaned back in his chair and spread out his arms. “But Rogers let him get away with it all the same.”

She shook her head in exasperation and got up to pace in front of the office windows. The office sat on top of the skyscraper and, from this angle, she could almost see Brooklyn. Not Steve’s neighborhood—he had stayed away from the trendy waterfront areas for his own reasons—nonetheless, it almost gave her anxiety. Rogers, despite his charming, old-fashioned sense of morality, shattered as thoroughly as anyone else did for the people they loved. The Winter Soldier had heard enough people begging and promising all sorts of things before he slaughtered them to understand this. 

And Bucky Barnes had understood that Steve would come running for him.

“So what do we do,” she asked, “to stop him from snapping Steve’s neck clean off tonight?”

Fury placed a hand on the heavy-looking box he had had on his desk when she first walked in and shook it. Whatever was within it made a substantial noise. “You, the caring friend, are going to deliver this helpful gift to Captain Rogers as soon as possible.”

She squinted at it with uncertainty. “There’s no way he’s going to bring Bucky back here.”

“Who said anything about bringing Barnes back here? This is something Rogers is going to need to use to keep the Soldier where he wants him.” Fury pointed a finger at Natasha. “And you need to buckle up for some deep reading because I’m giving you all the information on the Soldier’s treatment that Bennet didn’t want Rogers to see.”

Natasha took a deep breath. What was that Jane Austen thing Sam had quoted once? “There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends.” Stupid sap.

Stupid Natasha.

***

Steve had thought that Natasha was making an unexpected dirty joke when he opened the package and found the two handcuffs inside. Only when he dug out the magnetic panel from under them and instructions for how to install it into his wall did he realize that she intended him to use them for a very different type of reason.

He scoffed. He hadn’t anticipated Natasha to be thrilled with his decision regarding Bucky, but this was just paranoid. 

So he insisted to himself. Until he woke up that night with the Winter Soldier’s fingers wrapped around his throat.

He had fallen asleep on the couch, watching the late night news as Bucky roamed aimlessly around the apartment. Now he just managed to pry off the Soldier’s grip and kick the other man across the room, resulting in a smashed TV. The Soldier rose, unperturbed even through the splinters of glass sticking out of his flesh elbow. The metal arm slipped out from his waistband the kitchen’s chef knife.

“Great,” Steve muttered to himself. He dodged the knife and grabbed the Soldier’s wrist to pin his arm to his stomach. The other man gave him a real struggle, even as Steve ran him into the wall. The Soldier dropped the knife, yet recovered to punch Steve straight in the face.

He knew, then, that this would not end as peacefully as he wanted.

They beat on each other — not for long, but with full force. The Soldier was determined to pin him down. The rug burned Steve’s skin as he yanked himself off the ground. He cracked his elbow as it came in contact with metal during a poorly-timed strike. He drove his hand into the Soldier’s face so many times he thought he broke his palm. He tried to lock the other man down into a fetal position, but the Soldier maintained an elusiveness as skilled as his own. Although the Soldier met Steve’s grunts and yells of effort with the same silence he carried when they fought on the bridge, Steve noticed that his blows didn’t land with the same strength as before.

Yet, he still kept coming.

Left with no other resort, Steve placed the Soldier in the same chokehold that he had on the helicarrier. The seconds stretched into painful minutes. The Soldier clawed at his arm. Then Steve almost crumpled as Bucky’s unconscious body slumped against him.

He panted, sweat dripping off his forehead and neck. He could feel blood pounding in the bruises forming around his throat. One of his eyes had started to swell and he must have twisted his body the wrong way when moving the Soldier’s knife hand, because blood trickled down his side, staining his jeans. 

He didn’t think he would be in shape to join Sam on their morning run.

Steve let Bucky fall to the floor with a little less gentleness than he should have. Every breath hurt as he watched his friend’s chest rise and fall. He shouldn’t have trusted Bucky. He should have talked to the doctors himself. He should bring him back to S.H.I.E.L.D right now. He should…

Bucky’s body shifted. He threw his arm over his face, elbow crooked toward the ceiling. Like he always did when he…when he…

…Slept.

Oh God. Numerous muscles sharpened in protest as Steve lowered himself to the ground. That was what the doctors said he was doing. That sleepwalking thing, that dissociative fugue thing they had described. That.

Steve touched his forehead. He couldn’t remember them ever saying they had tried to prevent or treat it, this thing. He would have to ask Bucky in the morning. In the meantime, how many times a night would this happen? Was it going to happen forever? 

He had to install the handcuffs’ panel right now.

***

When Steve picked up his newspaper the next morning, yet another note from Natasha fell out of the plastic wrapping. He tossed this one to the trash without reading it, just as he had deleted all of her text messages. The last thing he wanted was a threatening version of “I told you so” while his eye had swollen shut and his throat still ached. He retreated back into the apartment quicker than he ever had.

He had caught up to the rest of the 21st century when it came to using tablets and smartphones for picking up the news, but it made a comforting ritual, pairing the paper with a fresh cup of coffee. His mother performed the same sequence in the mornings before the Depression. “Stevie, do you want to hear today’s stories?” she would ask. He learned how to read from her and the papers because when the other kids learned reading in school, another virus had had hold of him. She taught him how to draw too because he loved the comic strips the best and it was one of the few activities that he could do in bed.

Until age 12, she had been his best friend. Years later, after her death, if not for Bucky…

Well, Steve didn’t like to think about it. An echo of loneliness rattled inside of him now.

“Steve? Steve!”

The bottom of Steve’s mug clinked hard against the table and he rose up to fetch the tray he had left sitting underneath the microwave. The porridge had cooled, but it was still better than what they had had during the Depression and in the trenches. As for the strawberries, they came from the farmer’s market a few blocks from Steve’s building. He had purchased them only a few days ago and couldn’t help but wonder if he had somehow psychically prepared for Bucky’s arrival by getting his favorite fruit.

He opened the bedroom door and stopped dead in his tracks. Bucky sat upright in bed, but he must have struggled to get there because his face had drained of all color, his eyes glazed. Upon seeing Steve, he tugged a few times on the cuffs and sagged in his place. He had always had more robusticity than Steve, but there was that one year right before the War when he had had pneumonia and if Steve didn’t know better he would have thought that it flared up again.

“Oh my God.” Steve abandoned the tray on the night table and knelt by his friend’s side. “What happened to you?”

“Can say the same to you,” Bucky said and swallowed as Steve pressed the back of his hand against his forehead. No fever. “Nice shiners you got there. Present from S.H.I.E.L.D?”

Steve blinked a few times. He had barely slept after their scuffle last night, which had imprinted itself so deeply into his brain that it never occurred to him that Bucky wouldn’t remember it. He gave himself an extra moment to figure out what to say by yanking the cuffs off the wall and unlocking them from his friend’s wrists all the while wondering if he should. If Bucky looked like that, he should get more sleep. But if he slept… 

Behind the sheen of sweat, nervousness crept into Bucky’s features. “Steve?”

“Bucky—hey!” Steve caught his friend as he lurched forward, but then the metal arm hit him back. Right in the gut, which knocked the wind out of him. Bucky made a noise—one of abject remorse—hesitated for a moment, and then gathered the energy to launch himself off the bed. At first, it looked as if he might make it out the front door without stopping, but halfway down the hallway his pace dissolved into wobbling and he fell into a heap against the wall.

When Steve picked him up, tremors ran rampant throughout his body, his gasping filling the entire apartment.

“Please,” Bucky said, words ragged, “tell me I didn’t do that to you.”

The echoes of the hit still reverberated throughout Steve’s body as he steered his friend back to the bed and dumped him onto the mattress. “You didn’t; HYDRA did.”

The back of Bucky’s neck muscles drew up as if to lift his head, but then flattened again. “Are you going to send me back?”

Steve didn’t answer. He rearranged Bucky back into his prior position, then headed to the bathroom to fetch some water. He took longer than needed, flooding the glass over a few times. He had always been the sickly one and so his family had kept him far from people with possible contagious illnesses, even his grandmother in her last days, in fear that he would contract something awful. Bucky’s pneumonia had shut him away in his family’s home for 3 weeks and Steve didn’t see him until he was walking again.

But Steve supposed if anyone knew how to tend to anyone it should be him, given he had watched his mother and Bucky do it all his life.

He returned to the bedroom to Bucky facing away from him, rubbing the spot where the metal of his arm met the remainder of his flesh shoulder. Misery dribbled down over Steve, like someone had cracked an egg over his head. He couldn’t stay frustrated at Bucky. His friend had asked for Steve to take him out of an oppressive government center, not for another brawl. The Soldier came against both their wishes, pushing itself between them the way the passed decades and S.H.I.E.L.D had.

They couldn’t let them win.

He brushed aside some of Bucky’s hair from his forehead and pressed his lips to the clammy skin. Bucky flinched underneath him, but took the offered water.

“You started to get sick last night,” Steve said as he watched how slowly Bucky drank. “I was able to fend you off easily because of that.”

Bucky closed his eyes, as if to ignore him. “I don’t remember.”

“The doctors said that you did this for awhile when they first brought you in.” Steve wasn’t sure if telling Bucky this was at all useful. Part of him hoped, although he knew it a stupid part of him, that if Bucky knew the cause he could outthink it later. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“So if I want to sleep at all, you need to chain me to the wall.” Bucky scowled and threw the glass with all the strength he could muster. The glass hit the floor with a pleasant chime, but much less pleasant fragments skidded throughout the room. “Son of a bitch.”

Steve bit his tongue, suppressing the urge to chastise. There were more important things to worry about.

“But they didn’t keep you tied at S.H.I.E.L.D, did they?” Bucky didn’t reply, now brooding at one of Steve’s sketches hung up on the wall across from him. “Then what did they do to make you stop?”

“I don’t know, Steve, ask them. While you’re at it, ask them what they did to make me sick because I sure don’t promise nothing when I’m at full form again.” All talk, Steve knew, and he rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. Bucky lifted his arms, his hands bunched into fists. At the very least, his eyes held determination because if he had shown any pain, Steve may not have had the wherewithal to grab the cuffs. “Lock me up.”

***

He gave in a few hours later and decided to ring Natasha. He knew it the right thing to do. That didn’t stop him from regretting it once she picked up the phone and yelled down the line, “Thank you for finally getting back to me, you bastard. I was about to kick down your door!”

“If it makes you feel better,” he said, sitting on the armchair with a sketchpad in his lap and trying to decide what to draw. He missed having a phone cord to twirl around in his fingers, “you were almost right.”

“He tried to kill you last night,” Natasha said, and it probably said a lot about the type of people Steve surrounded himself with that he had half expected her to sound triumphant. She didn’t. “Anyone could see that coming from a mile away. Is this the part where you also apologize for stealing a violent person from S.H.I.E.L.D’s hold and doubting the advice from medical doctors who are much smarter than you are? Because you should think about that too.”

He drummed the end of the pencil on his leg, trying to distract from his embarrassment. He couldn’t say that he hadn’t been thinking when he made his choice yesterday because he had — just about the wrong things. How it hurt him to see Bucky so miserable every visit and how much he still didn’t trust Fury to handle the situation without lying to him. He didn’t think of Dr. Bennet and his near-death experience or Agent 72 and her fear.

But he should have.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been an arrogant idiot.”

“But you’re an arrogant idiot that needs my help.”

He smiled. “Yes.”

“Be there in five.” He could hear her crank the engine and zoom through whatever slice of road she rode on.

She stood in the doorway after four and a half minutes, her hair swept back and her cheeks bitten red by the wind. Her gaze lingered around his swollen eye and purple-pearled skin, but if she had an urge to say anymore harsh words, she refrained.

She only said, but with a touch of humor: “The only person that should be acting the way you have the past 24 hours is Tony. Or the Hulk.”

Steve laughed a little, despite himself. Then asked, “Do you want to see him?”

“Yeah, let’s take a look.”

***

Steve pulled his hand back just out of reach as Bucky’s jaw clamped shut. The man on the bed had transformed from a pathetic patient to a thrashing—albeit weakly—animal. Sweat formed and trickled down the Soldier’s forehead, veins popping as he watched Steve and Natasha back away. He attempted to lunge at them again, muscles strained to their limit against the cuffs. 

“Christ, Rogers,” Natasha said. “Your boyfriend’s a zombie.”

“Huh?” Steve said, not quite listening.

“A dead body that’s come back to life to eat—“

“I know what a zombie is, Natasha,” he said, exasperated. Some days he thought he knew nothing, but on the flipside 21st century people seemed to think they invented everything. He had to admit that Bucky, however, did not look like any zombie that he had seen in 1930s movies. The Soldier, even when illness dragged him down, tried to come at them with a very pointed ferocity. The zombies Steve remembered didn’t have much in the way of speed. “And Bucky’s not that. I’m pretty sure.”

“Well, I hate to say I told you so again, but the doctors may have saved your life last night. He might be able to break out of those things if not for the withdrawal symptoms he’s having.”

Steve stared at her. Withdrawal symptoms? Nobody had told him of anything like that when briefing him at S.H.I.E.L.D. He grabbed Natasha’s arm, maybe a little more roughly than he should have, and over her protests dragged her out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. The Soldier shouted something in Russian after them, apparently not thrilled by his targets’ escape.

“Don’t do that again,” Natasha said, slapping Steve’s shoulder once freed. “You act like such an asshole when you’re under pressure, you need to fucking work on that.”

“Sorry,” Steve said, but rushed into his question. “What did you mean, ‘withdrawal?’”

“Knows what a zombie is, but needs to have benzos explained to him.” Natasha rolled her eyes and sat down on one of the kitchen table chairs. “Listen, before you get upset, it’s normal procedure. Even I was on medication when I switched over to S.H.I.E.L.D because I had nightmares every night and then anxiety attacks when I was awake. And then there’s the guilt. About killing and about not killing. You don’t know how…”

She wet her lips, giving herself a moment.

“If he is who you think he is, he’s probably got all that. But since he’s built more like you, S.H.I.E.L.D had to give him a unique cocktail of drugs to keep him from freaking out all the time.”

Steve leaned against the counter, losing defensiveness. He had expected Natasha to dodge the subject or feed him dishonesty. He didn’t know what to do with a rational explanation like this. “I’ve never seen medicine make someone sick like this before.”

“Lack of,” Natasha corrected. “He’s not taking it anymore. While you two were off wrestling yesterday, we found some of his drugs hidden in the mattress in his room. He skipped up to three doses before he stabbed Dr. Bennet.”

Steve covered his face with his hands. This was, he realized, proving to be the absolute stupidest thing he had ever done in his life. They hadn’t told him enough, but he should have seen the signs. Should have noticed how Bucky had became more sedate after a few weeks in treatment and how something like talk therapy couldn’t have prompted such a sudden change. Should have asked them more questions they wouldn’t have answered, maybe. “Why would he do that?”

“You’d have to ask him.” Natasha eyed the bedroom door. “I mean, when he wakes up.”

If he could get Bucky to talk to him—Steve suspected that his friend might go as close-mouthed around him as the S.H.I.E.L.D doctors.


	3. Getting There

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Changing this fic's rating to mature because sex. Thanks for the journey, all :)

Bucky didn't wake for days.

This left Steve with only the Winter Soldier for company. At night, he laid on the couch and stared into darkness, jumping at every small sound whenever he almost dozed off. The one time he snatched a sliver of real sleep, a nightmare where the Soldier stomped on his chest chased him into the conscious world. He awoke without air and listened to the occasional clinking of the cuffs in the other room. 

Yet it wasn’t all bad.

He and the Soldier formed their own rhythm. Steve would come into the bedroom in the morning with breakfast and the Soldier would snarl at him. Soon, he had exhausted all his anxiety and began to make faces back. At this point, the body would have been chained in the same position for hours, which could cause lasting injury even to super soldiers. So Steve would wrestle him back to the bed and after a few taps, the Soldier would collapse from exhaustion. Repeat for lunch. Repeat for dinner.

It gave Steve a strange satisfaction. With the Soldier, he had clear life goals: survive, suppress. The two reduced each other back to animals, growling, hitting, biting. Their limbs locked into one another’s, their heaving breaths intermingled, one body crushed the other; an ongoing battle Steve could pride himself on always winning. As much as it whittled him down, he came to crave entanglement with the Winter Soldier.

When Bucky returned Saturday morning, strong enough to sit up in bed and talk, Steve almost regretted it. At this point, his fatigue rivaled his sick friend’s. But he still sturdied himself as Bucky leaned on him and he brought him out to the couch so that they could watch TV shows together on Steve’s laptop. Bucky laid his head on Steve’s shoulder as Steve showed him how to use the device and, although the illness had left its terrible cologne all over him, Steve caught whiffs of his native scent beneath it. He tried not to notice it too much lest a particular discomfort stir within him.

But watching movies on such a small screen still felt odd and Steve’s attention drifted to Bucky’s shoulders. The tight muscles didn’t loosen so easily in his touch, but based on Bucky’s leaning into his palms, his friend seemed grateful for the effort.

“I’ve been pulling at the cuffs,” Bucky observed, his flesh hand wandering over to Steve’s knee. His long hair tickled his nose and Steve held his breath as the hand crept higher up his leg.

“Do they hurt badly?” Steve asked as the other man turned his face toward him.

“Less now that you’re doing that,” Bucky said, but it must not have mattered that much to him because he turned around. The metal hand clutched the front of Steve’s shirt and Bucky closed the gap between their mouths. Steve jumped, heat surging throughout his body, as Bucky’s flesh hand rubbed the front of his jeans.

“Wait, wait,” he said, gasping as Bucky climbed on top of him. The metal hand now pinned him down by the shoulder. Lips travelled down Steve’s throat, toward the yellowing bruises. He pushed Bucky’s head away from him and grabbed the flesh hand by the wrist. All the sensation almost crumbled his resolve and it took all his might to get out the word, “Stop!”

“What’s wrong?” Concern reached Bucky’s blue-gray eyes, but they sucked Steve too far down when he looked at them. He thought that he could still see the Winter Soldier’s coldness glimmering back. “Steve?”

Steve could feel the cold too, in the air as snow bit their skin. Could feel the vibrations chattering his frame and hear the roaring as the train sliced through mountain tracks. Could feel the steel bar in his hand, imprinting into his skin as he reached out. He had screamed so loud it echoed in all his memories. 

“What are you doing?” he asked the Soldier, whatever part of him could hear.

“What we always wanted me to do.” But Bucky sat back in the couch now, supporting himself against the cushions. A pause. Then, pushing his hair back, he said, quieter, “I’m going too fast.”

He heard the scream now, like a chorus in his bones. Like a soundtrack, it overlaid 9-year-old Bucky falling and cutting open his knee as he played hopscotch with Steve and his sister. It went on as a 15-year-old Bucky handed Steve his piece of bread. And on as 20-year-old Bucky punched a man who had tried to mug Steve straight in the nose. It reached a crescendo as 27-year-old Bucky, again, fell off the train and into white nothingness.

Had Steve wanted him? As a child, he had always wanted to impress him. He needed to. Where Steve was always picked on, Bucky could always push down other boys at the playground. Where Steve was ignored as a scrawny teen, Bucky flitted from girl to girl. Where people dismissed Steve as a weakling, Bucky could create camaraderie.

Bucky was tall, able-bodied, and charming. Before now, when had he ever needed, never mind wanted, Steve?

“I’m sorry,” Steve said, straightening out his clothes. The side of his neck throbbed with the beginning of a different kind of bruise. “I just don’t know what this is.”

I don’t know who you are, he might have said instead.

“The same thing it’s almost always has been. Two men living together as friends, but wishing for more.” Bucky’s words came out hoarse. More sad than sexy. “Except they can now. I may not have figured out many things through the spell those drugs put me on, but I picked that up.”

Steve bit his lip. He knew there was no turning back after this question, but he had to ask, “Is this spell why you quit your medication?”

The tops of Bucky’s cheeks reddened. “Come on, that’s not what we’re talking about right now.”

But that wasn’t true. They couldn’t talk about anything until they talked about this. Shedding the drugs had revealed a whole new person underneath. A person that had the same edge to his accent Bucky had had since youth and the same walk he had taken on after enlistment with the army. But before the train, Bucky had never looked at him in such a way; that way which made Steve think he might shatter to pieces right there. 

“You won’t be sick forever. Neither of us can promise that the HYDRA programming won’t kill me tomorrow,” Steve said, on the corner of pleading. He grabbed Bucky’s hand, to try to show him he didn’t blame him. “So I’d like to talk about it.”

Bucky drew back, flinching. “You can just keep on cuffing me. It’s not that bad.”

“Dr. Bennet had two guards outside his office. It didn’t save him.”

“Don’t you talk about him.” Bucky stood up, in a sudden burst of energy. Well-learned this time around, Steve waited for him to sway on his feet before following. As he went to catch his friend, the other man pushed him away, gasping. “Don’t touch me!”

“Bucky, please calm down. I can’t help you when you’re like this.”

“Well, that’s just typical. Nobody can help me,” Bucky said, his voice high-pitched in between his body’s heaving. Steve had witnessed this happening to him once, back at the S.H.I.E.L.D facility. It sounded like the asthma attacks Steve used to have, but the doctors had told him that it had nothing to do with Bucky’s lungs. It was all from his mind. Tears pricked at the corners of Bucky’s eyes as he said, “Just admit…it’s you…not wanting…”

He collapsed, the metal arm jutting in what appeared a painful angle under his stomach. Steve sat down next to him and lowered his eyelids, waiting. His eyes had burned all of today. He could live without adequate sleep a lengthier amount of time than most men, but the 3 hours that fueled him now wouldn’t last him more than the rest of the week.

It took awhile for the storm to pass, but eventually Bucky settled down. He went longer in between breaths, his body shuddering with each sharp inhale. He stared at some mysterious spot on the floor, snot running from his nose, his arms wrapped around himself. With Bucky like this, Steve could almost forget that the metal arm had once caught his shield in midair and sent it back. It knew ricochet, understood the right angle at which to grasp and how to fling it back hard. Now, it only held tight, trying to keep its owner from falling apart.

“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

Bucky paid no mind this time when Steve reached for him. Steve tried wiping the tears off his cheeks, but new ones kept tumbling down.

“I just wanted to not feel dead anymore.”

“You’re not dead.” Steve stretched out on the floor, parallel to Bucky. He wiped off a few more tears. “You’re here, with me. As you should be.”

Blue-gray eyes finally met his again. “I want to tell you why, but I can’t. You’ll hate me.”

A corner of Steve’s mouth quirked. “You have no idea how impossible that is.”

“You’re Captain America, the Avenger,” Bucky said. “You’re supposed to hate things, like me, that want to kill innocent people."

“I’m also Steve Rogers. If you needed me to, I’d put down the shield in a heartbeat. For good.”

A long silence draped over them, Bucky softening in surprise. From the corner of his eye, Steve could see that the laptop screen had turned back to the Netflix main page. His phone had buzzed at least three times, probably more messages from Natasha if not some pouting from Sam. The sun kept flickering in and out of clouds. His hand slid from Bucky’s face, down his arm where the wounds from the broken TV glass had healed a few days prior. Bucky covered his hand and held it there, like he could keep Steve there forever.

“I told him that I wanted to make it so that the other people in park were as dead as me. He said that I couldn’t have felt that bad. I said it was the only thing that could make me feel anything while I was on those drugs. I asked him to change my regiment, but he said he wouldn’t. I’m too dangerous to tinker with. After that, he said that he didn’t want me going outside anymore.” Bucky squeezed his eyes shut. “I don't know what happened then. I woke up to him bleeding on the floor.”

squeezing Bucky’s arm. He would have to get outside himself later, when this was all over. He was going to either have to kick Dr. Bennet’s ass once he recovered enough to get out of the hospital or brawl with Fury over assigning the former to Bucky. This was not how he was assured that this would go. This was not how anything involving Bucky was supposed to go.

“Sure.” Bucky didn’t seem to notice Steve’s silently stewing rage. He sat up, his face still reflecting a sheen of tears, which he reached up to wipe away. The movement was slow and clumsy. “I need to go back to bed.” 

Nothing else he could have said would have sounded more sincere. Steve pressed his lips to his forehead. Although all their prior rowdiness had dissipated, the urge to touch still buzzed through his nerves. Even if they wouldn’t strip and writhe against one another, he had to chase the connection of skin. He couldn’t remember Bucky doing anything more than adoring him in a brotherly manner back when they were growing up, but Steve had needed him then and he still needed him now. 

“I’ll come with you.”

He thought of quenching the thirst, not heeding the danger.

***

Steve woke up, once again, with the Winter Soldier on top of him. 

The window shade, although open, let in little light and Brooklyn’s constant buzz had dulled to its nocturnal lull. After a bleary moment, the softness impressed him from underneath and the room began to take shape. His heart sank as he realized that he had never left the bedroom.

Based on his straddling Steve’s waist, with only his boxers as barrier between his crotch and Steve’s stomach, the Soldier understood the context.

“You creep,” Steve said. 

He brought up his feet and canted his hips, at the same time driving a fist into the Soldier’s ribs. The Soldier grunted and fell over him. Had they had fought on a flatter surface, he surely would have tabled out, giving Steve further opportunity to strike. But the mattress shifted the balance, cushioning the Soldier’s fall. He recovered quickly, rolling over enough for Steve to drive his fist into one of the pillows. As Steve tried to work out a rebound, he missed the Soldier’s open palms coming down and slamming against the sides of his head. Steve’s hearing in both his ears dropped like swatted flies.

And with that went his balance. He laid back on top of the mattress, dizzy and only vaguely catching the sound of metal scratching across wood. He didn’t have time to struggle as the Soldier dragged his arms upward and attached his wrists to the wall. He hissed as his shoulders rolled back, his muscles wrenching out of place.

“You don’t want to do this,” Steve said as the ringing in his ears subsided. It was almost embarrassing how the most cliche thing came out of his mouth, but he needed to take the chance if it meant Bucky heard it. Even if it looked like the Winter Soldier really did want this.

The metal hand reached out and traced some kind of pattern over Steve’s forehead before lowering to touch his mouth. A heavy pause ate up the space between them. Then, “The man from the bridge.”

“Bucky, you know me.” Steve tried to squirm out of the Soldier’s reach. He wouldn’t let him. “It’s Steve, damnit. Wake up!”

“Why do you look at me that way?” The metal fingers fanned out over Steve’s face, the tips coming dangerously close to his eyeballs. The hand trembled as it mapped out the shape of Steve’s face. The Winter Soldier leaned in. “None of the others did.”

Steve twisted his head to the side to avoid the touch as he said, “The others wanted you to stop hurting them. I don’t want you to do this because if you do, you’ll hurt yourself. Bucky! Stop this, please.”

“No stopping now. You’re my mission.” The fingers slipped, lowering to Steve’s throat. They filled the yellowed spots where they had resided before, like coming home. But they didn’t squeeze. The Soldier cocked his head, skin creasing at his brow. Like he was trying to remember something. 

Steve could still lean forward. Not enough to headbutt the other man, but enough to make it count. He thrusted himself forward as far as he could go and planted his lips onto the Soldier’s mouth.

The Soldier neither resisted nor gave back. Steve held himself there for as long as he could bear, hoping desperately for some kind of reaction. The Soldier refused to break, his hands still weighing down on Steve’s body. With terrible dread, Steve pulled away, expecting to hear a death knell.

Instead, the Soldier rammed his teeth into his mouth, drawing blood from Steve’s upper lip. Euphoric, Steve managed to close his lips and push back, rearranging them into a harsh kiss. The Soldier climbed back on top of him, rendering him fully powerless. The two of them ground against once another, moans and gasps emitting from them that almost turned ugly on Steve’s part when the Soldier reached down and grasped Steve a little too hard between the legs.

The cuffs sent fire down Steve’s arms as he jumped, taking the edge off the pleasure. “Bucky,” he gasped into the Soldier’s neck, “please, please let my arms go.”

He hissed again and shuddered as the Winter Soldier yanked down Steve’s jeans to his thighs and drew out his cock. He looked at Steve, unaffected. “Don’t run.”

The Soldier’s thumb idly traveled around his head. Steve bit down hard on his lip to stifle most of a moan, his hips bucking up. Running became so far down on his list of things to do that it might have been funny if his shoulders hadn’t hurt so bad. “Promise.”

As if to make sure, the Soldier gave Steve a few tugs, reducing him to a limp series of gasps, before stretching upward to rip the cuffs free. Steve let out a sigh of relief and lowered his arms only to have the Winter Soldier grab them and wrap them around his neck. The Soldier’s mouth traveled to Steve’s throat where the bruises lived and he nuzzled the tender areas as he pulled Steve’s jeans further down to his ankles and then his boxers down to his knees. Steve shivered as the metal hand graced his thigh.

Licking and sucking on Steve’s throat, the Soldier lined his dick up against Steve’s and thrusted against him. 

Steve had never quite imagined sex with anyone like this, with him being arranged and rearranged just so. The Soldier touched him as he pleased, prying apart his thighs, kneading at his ass, brushing back his hair, and biting at his jaw. He seemed to take particular pleasure at Steve’s surprised yells and would stop and start at random intervals to catalyze them. By the time Steve felt the orgasm coming, the Soldier had locked him back into place with the cuffs and kissed and bitten his way down his chest and stomach. Steve came into the Soldier’s mouth.

The last thing he remembered before dozing off was the hitching of the Soldier’s breath and a final moan as cum spilled onto Steve’s stomach.

***

They hadn’t shared a bed since they were kids.

And, other those few times with Sharon, Steve hadn’t shared a bed with anyone in his life except for Bucky. So in the morning, when Steve found him on the other side of the mattress, face smooth with sleep, his chest rising and lowering in light rhythm, it felt like things had finally clicked back into place. The cuffs still dangled from Steve’s wrists and he removed them before tucking himself around Bucky’s shape. 

It should have been a gentle gesture, but of course Bucky startled upward instead, gasping. “Steve?”

“Good morning,” Steve said. And by God was it. His eyes no longer burnt. He couldn’t remember the last time he had experienced such refreshment. “You look better.”

Bucky pressed the back of his flesh hand across his head and cheeks to check for his own fever. The color had returned to his skin. Steve looked away, trying to suppress his smirk.

“I dreamed that I—we…” Bucky’s gaze flickered between Steve’s contented face and his naked chest, where a few betraying flecks of white had dried. His hand dropped to the blankets with a thump. “Did I dream that?”

Steve didn’t say anything, just grinned wider. Bucky laughed, the sound ringing throughout the room, before pouncing on top of Steve. The two of them gripped each other, kissing in between the intermingled seizes of laughter that overcame them. The moment stretched in luxury over time for Steve as Bucky cradled his face in his hands, pressed kisses to his temples, nibbled at his ears. Their legs twined together to trap one another into place.

“I always did take care of you, Stevie, didn’t I?” Bucky said when they briefly paused, his tongue touching mischievously up against the back of his front teeth.

“If you had taken care of me like that back in the 30s, I would have turned out a very different man,” Steve said, reaching up to brush a few intrusive locks out of Bucky’s face. But before he could complete the motion, a loud bang emitted from the other side of the apartment.

Bucky jumped out of his embrace and pivoted to face the door, ready to lunge. Steve managed to snake his arm around his lover’s waist and trap him onto the bed, which he wouldn’t have if he had been any other man. He knew that they had three seconds.

3…

“Bucky, wait!”

One side of Bucky’s mouth had risen up to expose his teeth. He cocked his metal fist, his nose pointing toward the bedroom door like a bloodhound. “I’m going to fucking kill them all.”

2…

“Just stay here. Trust me.”

1…

BOOM!

The door flung open, half coming off its hinges. Sharon had a visor over her head and her S.H.I.E.L.D uniform covered her from the neck down, but it would take much more coverage than that for Steve to not recognize her familiar shape. Behind her, a miniature army assimilated, guns aimed straight at Bucky’s head. Some of the agents startled back at the sight of them, the barrels bobbing at Steve before returning to their target.

He imagined that they gave a nice impression. The thin blankets protected their decency up to their hips. Steve held Bucky close enough to make a show of protection, but Bucky still offered a fight, his arm reflecting the sunshine coming in from the window and his face frozen into a snarl. As much as Steve regretted not being able to witness Sharon’s initial reaction, he appreciated that she lowered her weapon first.

“Good morning,” she said, removing the helmet. Her team fidgeted; some lowered their guns with her, others cocked the barrels slightly away from the two men as if unsure whether or not they posed a threat. “You know how many of your friends have called you since yesterday? I wish you’d gotten in touch to say you were alive so it didn’t have to come to this.”

“And I wish you had the manners to knock first,” Steve said. He tapped Bucky’s side to tell him to relax, but the other man refused to heed. 

“S.H.I.E.L.D is not in the habit of trying to give heads up to potential murderers of their finest agents.” Sharon gestured behind her and the other agents finally stored away their weapons. The visors still veiled their faces, but they appeared rather bashful anyway. She flashed a smile. “Hi Bucky, nice to finally meet you. I would shake your hand, but…”

She shrugged. Steve thought he saw her eyeing his body and he resisted looking down to check if there was anything visible left on him. If there was, the other agents didn’t seem to notice before muttering to each other and slipping out of sight. Self-righteousness suddenly seized him and he called out to them, “Please pick up anything you knocked over!” Someone grunted back; he thought it sounded like affirmation.

The tension finally left Bucky and he retreated, leaning with enough weight on Steve’s shoulder so that he noticed, but Sharon might not have. He surveyed her with silence, then crossed his arms against his chest and looked down at his own lap. Steve never thought he would see the day where he was better than Bucky when it came to women.

“This is Sharon,” Steve said. “She’s a friend.”

“A friend who’s unusually comfortable with seeing you naked,” Bucky said. He still maintained an interest his lap, but tipped his head in Steve’s direction. Blood rushed up Steve’s face. From Bucky’s shadow of a smirk and Sharon’s outright laugh, he could estimate what shade of red he had become.

“You already knew.”

“People are not as subtle as they think they are when they’re… What do they call it now?” It took a moment for both Steve and Sharon to realize that Bucky directed the question toward her.

“Getting laid?” she ventured.

“No, we had that term back in the 40s.”

“Fucking?”

To Bucky’s credit, he seemed unaffected by swear words, which still came much more easily from 21st century mouths for Steve’s liking. “We didn’t use it as much, but we had that one too.”

“Either way, I promise I was only borrowing him until you came back,” she said, her grin turning more and more devilish as Steve stared at her.

“Well, thanks for returning me,” he said. “You’re free to leave my apartment now.”

“I’m glad we’re such good friends, Steve. I’ll pass it along to Fury that he should lay off. See you later.” She turned to go out the door. They heard her say, moments before the front door opened and shut, “Nice meeting you, Bucky!”

With her out of sight, Bucky sunk further into Steve’s body and buried his face in the crevice between his shoulder and throat. Steve wrapped his arms around him and pulled him to his chest. “That was amazing. You’re amazing.”

“I’m exhausted,” Bucky said, voice maybe only an octave above a moan.

“That’s the first time I’ve seen you have a conversation with anyone other than Bennet and I since you—well.” Steve kissed the top of his head. Bucky leaned back and pulled Steve with him, back to the pillows. Any embarrassment at having been seen forgotten, they shove the sheets away and spread out across the mattress, mouths attached. Steve crawled on top of Bucky, who teasingly thrust his hips upward. Steve made a shocked half-moan at the contact, then pressed his face against Bucky’s chest to worship the space.

“Happy you got me out of there after all, huh?” Bucky said, lifting his head to watch Steve work his way down. His hair had fallen into his eyes again and his lips, swollen and pink, parted with pleasure. 

“Of course,” Steve said, pausing at the sharp beginning of Bucky’s pelvis. His fingers moved past the bush of pubic hair, touching as lightly as he could the head of Bucky’s cock. The man under him shivered with anticipation. “Don’t laugh, but I don’t quite know what to do here.”

“I saw what equipment Sharon has--I’m not going to laugh.” The metal hand brushed through Steve’s hair, then cupped the back of his head to push him down. “Here, I’ll guide you…”

***

“The hell is this? Seriously?” Bucky reached over the kitchen table and waved a piece of sashimi under Steve’s nose. It pained Steve a bit to see that after a few tries, Bucky had already mastered chopsticks. Steve had gone out to sushi with friends for several years now and still had to spear through the fish sometimes. 

He squinted at the white fish, still about as indistinguishable to him as most of the white fish Japanese restaurants served, and pulled the take out menu out of the paper bag. What he really liked about this particular place was that it counted as cheap eats when it came to sushi while still serving quality food. He hadn’t realized that he still felt out of place at higher end restaurants until he started exploring different cuisines at home with Bucky. “Uh, I think it’s yellowtail?”

“It tastes like salty rubber,” Bucky said, pained. “Steve, we shouldn’t be eating uncooked food. It’s unnatural. I’m going to get salmonella.”

“Salmonella is from eggs. Besides, since when have you been a histrionic?” Wikipedia had taught him that term last week. They had looked up quite a few things in the psychology field in attempt to further understand and deal with Bucky’s anxieties, but it turned out that definitions didn’t count for much in terms of recovery.

“When I found out that they charge two and a half bucks for this stupid little thing and one for my Coke.” Bucky flicked the can in front of him. The aluminum responded with a dull echo. “How do people afford food nowadays?” 

“I’m not going anywhere near broke paying for this if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I don’t understand,” Bucky said, exasperated. His rested his chin on his metal hand and poked at the pile of rice he had curated at the corner of his plate.

Steve shrugged and lifted his water glass. “Neither do I. Something about inflation during another war? I haven’t really asked anyone to explain it to me.”

“No.” Bucky’s gaze met his. “I mean, I don’t understand how you’ve lived here so long without going crazy.”

“Oh.” Steve swallowed. All his recent reading about trauma had made him wonder this as well. S.H.I.E.L.D had planned to gradually assimilate him, but he burst away from them only minutes after regaining consciousness. Afterward, he had expended a lot of energy on upkeeping his body, punched a lot of things, glued his mind to his work. He supposed concentrating on certain tasks had saved him from letting what he had lost eat away at his soul. “It wasn’t easy. I felt isolated for a long time.”

Constantly, in fact. Up until the moment he saw Bucky again.

“You’re giving me that look,” Bucky said, his brow furrowing.

Steve winced and stood up to collect their plates. “Sorry.”

Bucky grabbed him by the arm and yanked him down to his lap. The plates nearly fell to the floor and Steve made an annoyed noise. His lover shushed him, metal arm snaking around to hold Steve into place. The temperature in the room rose an abrupt several degrees. Steve’s throat went dry as Bucky buried his face into the side of his neck and inhaled. He whispered right there, “I can’t be everything you dreamed of having back.”

Even in his limited mobility, Steve managed to reach up to pet long, brown hair. “I know.”

“But I want to try. Just be patient. Please.”

“You don’t have to try. You’re fine as you are. I swear.”

They sat there for a long time. Bucky breathing in. Steve stroking his hair. A quiet, still picture in the ever-changing cold of 21st century Brooklyn.


End file.
